With the upcoming holidays, many children want to speak with Santa Claus. For the second year, Sorenson, a global language services provider, is providing deaf children the opportunity to sign with a deaf Santa.
Britnee Hursin, director of events at Sorenson, makes sure everything goes to plan with their upcoming Holiday campaigns.
Hursin is deaf herself and said that within the Deaf community, the holidays are a difficult time. She said many deaf family members struggle with what’s referred to as the “dinner table syndrome,” because they feel left out due to a lack of American Sign Language within the family.
Sorenson is bringing solutions to these hard times.
“We're putting on the Deaf Santa as an opportunity for kids to meet with and have some representation because Deaf Santa is limited towards little kids,” Hursin said.
Along with Deaf Santa, there will be two more workshops. One is about teaching holiday-themed ASL.
“We wanted to be able to engage with all the community with holiday stories, holiday signs, as well as showing the rest of the community how they can engage with their deaf family members,” Hursin said.
The second workshop will host Justin Perez, a deaf performer who will sign holiday stories.
Hursin has been with Sorenson for over a year now and has felt a deep sense of connection during her time there.
“I am deaf myself and I love working for my community and Sorenson’s mission to uplift the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community is something that I personally believe and align with. So working here is very amazing to be able to work on my personal passion projects and to be able to support the community,” Hursin said.
Details on the workshops can be found on the Sorenson website.
